Risks to financial and climate stability can be analysed independently yet also understood as tightly related. As systemic risks both are geographically dispersed, embedded within broader benefits and tightly coupled with both related and seemingly unrelated risks. The project analyses how systemic risks pose particular challenges by sapping political motivation and defying control efforts. Progress falters in part because the geographic reach and legal complexity of control regimes increase possibilities for strategic gaming of government attempts to bring such risks under control by regulated industries. Further, systemic risks to climate and financial stability point to the potential limits of instrumentalism. If uncoupling economic growth from rising carbon emissions proves impossible one must confront the possibility of a third inter-related risk: the potential for deep and entrenched social conflict.